Tag Archives: garfield park conservatory

Jolyne + Brendan were married at Park Community Church in April and celebrated their reception at Garfield Park Conservatory. This was a particularly fun challenge for me because we planned the entire wedding in 11 weeks. They knew they were going to get engaged, so they reached out to me and luckily Garfield Park Conservatory had an April Saturday open. They jumped on it, he officially proposed in Florida while they were on vacation and we were off the the races.

Thank my lucky stars Jolyne was decisive about her vendors, we made them quickly and put together a great team for the day.

After getting all dressed up, we met at the church and I had the delight of sending all of these beautiful people down the aisle. The little sweeties who brought the rings and tossed the petals were so talkative and excited, the perfect age for ringbear-ing and flower girl-ing!

And party we did! Garfield Park Conservatory is SUCH an amazing space to have a reception, you get to be surrounded by the most amazing flora and don’t have to worry about inclement weather of any kind! A wedding planners’ dream.

A lovely couple, with lovely families who got engaged and married in record speed. Now who wants to hire me to plan their wedding in less than 11 weeks? We can do it! Until then, Jolyne and Brendan will be in the AE record books!

Louisa + Jeff were married in September at the gorgeous Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago and the day was nothing short of that: simply gorgeous.Louisa and I worked together for over a year and it was such a pleasure to get to see how all of the planning came together on a perfect day for the happy couple.

I loved getting to know them over the year and meeting Louisa on her lunch break at work for a coffee, honestly, I say it all the time but I have the best clients ever. It’s also really fun for me when I love everything a bride picks. Her dress? Love. Those red shoes? To die for. And you know I’m a sucker for those map garlands. PLUS an entire room full of cacti?! Slay me. And also, I die.

The dream team of vendors that we put together, it didn’t hurt.The ethereal pictures from Laura at Lark Photography are show stopping.I was audibly ooh-ing and ahh-ing as I looked through them.She captured everything so ethereally.You look at the pictures and think, that was in Chicago!?

Louisa + Jeff really wanted to keep their love and appreciation of the natural world in the forefront which is not always an easy feat in a city wedding but Laura nailed it.And the flowers, oh the most lovely flowers.Janessa of Forget Me Knodt really knocked it out of the park with this one; so many of Laura and my favorite pictures featured her gorgeous creations.

Overwhelmingly, everything we did or element we included we tried to be very thoughtful about it. Louisa water-colored each individual invitation and all of the table numbers and we incorporated little packets of seeds for guests to take home and plant. There wasn’t a lot of “stuff” just for the sake of “stuff” and the whole event turned out so effortlessly chic, I think we were all a bit in awe as it came together that day.

Aren’t they so sweet? I actually knew both of them before they hired me to coordinate their day. They both work at Shedd Aquarium and in my former life I occasionally had the pleasure of working with them. Mostly I would be asking them to disrupt the animals schedules by keeping the lights on or taking guests behind the scenes for a party I was planning. Oops. Sorry guys! Also, an aside: Lise takes care of all the sharks at Shedd. Pretty amazing right? Now you know why Jim had to lock that down asap! Needless to say, I was thrilled and flattered when she reached out to me to ask me to coordinate.We set up the conservatory for the reception while the wind howled on the patio where the ceremony was to take place. Jim and Lise took the weather in stride and got some pictures out of the way before the ceremony started.

Their wedding was on a Friday night and it was, without question, one of the windiest days of the year. Since half of their guest list was coming from the south loop we decided to wait a few more minutes to start the ceremony. Guests were seated on the patio and six raindrops fell (literally, just a few drops) and it was a game-time decision. If we didn’t have the ceremony outside, we would have had to move the guests into the reception room and have them sit at their tables. All along, they REALLY wanted the ceremony on the patio. This moment will be etched into me for a long time: I looked at Lise and said it was now or never, she said let’s do it and so we did. I think because she takes care of sharks and is therefore, a bad*ss bride, she didn’t care. She was getting married outside.

I ran to cue the music, the bridal party lined up, and they walked a little faster than maybe we had originally intended. As soon as everyone was down the aisle I ran for umbrellas: I was worried about her hair.

Lise’s man-of-honor Jim walked her down the aisle. Not to be confused with her husband, also Jim :) Lise and Jim asked their friend and colleague Dr. Lisa (yes, everyone must have nearly the same name to be in this wedding!) to marry them. She did an amazing job coping with the weather and the wind and a unity candle that just wouldn’t stay lit.

Come wind, or rain, or an aisle runner that just wouldn’t stay put (we tried SO HARD) it didn’t matter. They were married and it was beautiful!

A little cake cutting and delicious cupcakes for dessert compliments of Sensational Bites. Lise and Jim live in the Southport neighborhood of Chicago and did an INCREDIBLE job of hiring a lot of small, local shops to take part in their wedding. The results were amazing and it was such a fantastic way to support their ‘hood.

Oh yes, and then the party begins:

Man-of-Honor-Jim introduced a dinner club where course after course of the most amazing food you can imagine is prepared and served to his friends at his house. The ticket to get in door? A bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Needless to say, Groom-Jim and Lise are now hooked and had to toast with it on their wedding night. I highly doubt you can go back to Chandon after you know the glory of the Veuve.

…and a little Cubs rounds out the night! Groom-Jim loves the Cubs. He didn’t put it on until later in the night, but a little Cubs love had to be included on their wedding.